Things They Didn’t Tell you about Employee Monitoring

September 22, 2015 9:45 am

Keylogging software programs are often seen by employees in a bad light; employers who choose to implement employee monitoring systems are sometimes seen as control freaks or even tyrants simply because the employees do not completely understand the reasons behind employee monitoring and the benefits it offers to the company. In most cases, employees who are against employee monitoring system argue that installing keylogger software in office computers will completely obliterate the already miniscule sense of privacy the workers have.

By educating your employees properly and by being open to them about the surveillance techniques you’re planning to implement, they may more readily accept your suggestions. That being said, here are some of the things you and your employees ought to know about keylogging software:

Slackers in the workplace cause a lot of hardworking employees to work even harder to compensate for their lackluster performance. Using keyloggers can help the employer spot these slackers in the workplace, as well as the efficient, hardworking employees and do adjustments to the workloads and employment paradigm as necessary.

Problems regarding office work are easier to trace with the keylogging software around. Since keylogging software neatly documents all activities triggered by keyboard presses, the logs kept act as screenshots that the employer can simply refer to instead of intrusively interviewing employees.

Law dictates that using networked keylogging software requires asking the employee first. This is usually done in writing.

Under no circumstances are employers allowed to use private information obtained from the employees using keylogger software. Email accounts, social media accounts, and other sites, files, or programs that contain information pertaining to one’s personal life cannot be tampered with or accessed regardless of the reason. Parents and their children, and investigators and prisoners, however, are exempt from this rule due to obvious safety reasons.

In terms of legality, most states allow employers to check their employees’ activity in company computers. However, this case only assumes that access to personal data is prohibited and therefore will not be captured by keylogging software. There have been cases brought up in court regarding employers allowing employees to access personal information using company computers, only for the employees to find out later that an invisible keylogger was secretly running in the background collecting their data.

The law allows employers to check only the work-related things employees are assumed to be doing on an office computer; if in the workplace access to personal information is allowed, then the employers have to be selective in the types of information they log.

Too much freedom in the use of company resources can hurt the company. Trust nowadays becomes more of a liability than an asset. From impolite emails to clients, to illegal use of company resources, to dissemination of company secrets, to sexual harassment, to loss of productivity due to time-wasting websites, keylogging software could easily help an employer save a company from plummeting. Just make sure that you and your employees are well informed about the risks and actions involved in employee monitoring, and also assure them that their private lives aren’t being pried upon, and you’ll be seeing significant improvements take place in the workplace.

KarenCole is author at LeraBlog. The author's views are entirely his/her own and may not reflect the views and opinions of LeraBlog staff. I am a 40 years-old woman, living in Philadelphia, United States. I am living with my family: my husband and my one child. I am the creator and editor of the HealthBenefitAdmin online magazine and I am the responsible person for the published content.